Still no government in Spain as PM Rajoy loses new government vote

Spain’s political crisis deepened yet further on Wednesday when caretaker prime minister Mariano Rajoy failed to win the confidence of parliament in order to form a new government.

The result means that the stalemate which has left the country without a fully-fledged government stretches into a ninth month after general elections in December and June both failed to produce a conclusive result.

As well as the support of his own Popular Party (PP), Mr Rajoy was backed by the centrist Ciudadanos (Citizens) after the two parties agreed on a 150-point programme to combat corruption and help businesses and families.

But the main Socialist party (PSOE), anti-austerity Left-wing Podemos, and Basque and Catalan nationalists rejected another term for Mr Rajoy, who lost by 180 votes against to 170 in favour.

The country now faces the real possibility of a third general election in a year, unless Mr Rajoy or another candidate is able to conjure a parliamentary majority by the end of October. If the deadlock is not broken, the next election would fall on the highly inconvenient date of December 25.

Mr Rajoy warned members of Congress that failure to install him as prime minister would threaten Spain’s economic recovery, which has seen unemployment fall to 20 per cent from its peak of 27 per cent in 2013 during the country’s crippling financial crisis. The lack of a new government will also mean that a budget for 2017 cannot be passed, displeasing the European Commission, which has demanded fresh cuts to Spain’s public deficit.

“Is there someone here who is thinking about calling Spaniards to the ballot boxes once more? And how many times are they prepared to do so?” Mr Rajoy asked after underlining that the PP had won June’s ballot by a bigger margin than last December.

PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez said he could not allow a government marked by “corruption, bad economic management and cutbacks” to remain in power. But Mr Sánchez has not outlined any plans for an alternative government after he failed to win a confidence vote in March when Podemos refused to join an agreement between PSOE and Ciudadanos.